Olympic Love
by Charly The Ninja
Summary: Inspired by the 22nd Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. I thought since the Olympics were ending soon I'd write a little something. Lucy and Natsu compete in team skating. When something goes wrong and someone ends up in the hospital, what will the dynamic duo do! Tragedy, Romance, Hurt/Comfort; Nalu; AU
1. Chapter 1

Inspired by and in honor of the 22nd Winter Olympic Games

The bite of the cold air was hardly noticeable in his arms. As they spun round and round in each other's arms, she lost herself in the music, the choreography, and him. She barely registered her flawless triple axle and beautiful throw above his head. All she felt were the burning spots along her body where he had touched her. Her love for him was merely one-sided but that gave her no reason to not yearn to skate on the ice in his arms and feel depressed when she had to skate solo.

His strong arms caught her from yet another throw and she hit the ice with perfect balance. The gold medal was sure to be theirs. Then, maybe he'd notice her. She couldn't help but realize how perfectly she fit in his embrace, as if she were sculpted just for him. Looking into his captivatingly deep eyes, she saw her reflection. A smile spread across her face. A similar one looked rather lovingly back at her.

Her blush could be blamed on the comforting cold which surrounded her and her partner. As she went skating away, preparing for yet another flawless finish, something happened. She recognized the way he grinned at her, the way he looked quickly away when she was just planning on gazing lonely at him. It was the exact same way she smiled at him and the way she averted her eyes just before she thought he would notice her staring.

He loved her.

She loved him.

She hadn't realized until that very last triple axle, the one that would finish it all and for sure get them the gold. She also hadn't realized she'd skated two strokes too many toward the bar separating Olympian from spectator. All of this ran through her head a millisecond after she entered the air.

"At least I can die happy," She thought.

Her head hit the separator.

In the distant reaches of her mind, she thought she may have heard a strangled cry. It was from a voice that sounded very familiar. That familiar voice shouted quite a familiar thing.

"Lucy!" It called.

Her face formed a smile and her last thought was, "Goodbye, Natsu."

Everything went black.

**Tell me if I should continue this story! It'll probably end up being about four or five chapters because those seem to suit me best.. AND I AM HAVING MAJOR WRITING BLOCK SO I HAD TO WRITE A COUPLE THINGS LIKE THIS..**

**CharlyTheNinja**

**~(-.-)~ Nin-Nin ~(-.-)~**


	2. Chapter 2

Lucy came to in a white room. The soft white curtains were billowing in the breeze coming from the open balcony. Her silky white sheets seemed to flow like water over her pale skin. Her blonde hair fanned out behind her face. Her eyes felt heavy as well as her head. The rest of her body just felt asleep and her waist felt tingly.

She heard a quiet snoring to her left and saw a head of pink fluff. Her eyes were still blurry as she looked at the pink. When Lucy focused hard enough she saw that the fluff was actually hair. She giggled and remembered, _Natsu.._ The sound of her moving awoke the boy clutching her hand like a life-line. He groggily lifted his head and blinked, mouth agape and still sleepy. His hair was pushed to one side of his head while the other side was flattened from laying on Lucy's bed.

His eyes suddenly widened. "Lucy," he whispered. She smiled and looked lovingly down into his eyes. "Nurse!" he shouted, "Nurse, she's awake!" Natsu reached over her and pushed a red button on the side of her bed. The door was flung open as three nurses and a doctor in a lab coat came barreling into the room. The doctor stood at the foot of the bed, mouth hanging open. "Oh my god," he said, "She woke up. That's…that's amazing!"

The nurses continued to tend to the tubes sticking from her arms and repeatedly kept checking to make sure she was actually awake. Lucy made a confused face and asked the first thing that came to mind, "Whargh.." Her eyes widened. She couldn't seem to make any noise but a small, incoherent sound. Her head twisted painfully to the side as her eyes flew to one nurse after another, followed by the head doctor, then finally Natsu.

"Oh," the doctor said sadly and rather dejectedly, "I see." Natsu's worried face snapped to the doctor, "What do you mean 'I see'? What's wrong?" The doctor, whose nameplate said Dr. Donni Lucy noticed, sighed and started speaking once more, slowly and nervously, "Well, you see…Lucy's injury was on one of the most sensitive parts of the human head. She hit just the right spot to do a lot of damage." Lucy's eyes widened and began to tear up, "Now that she's awake we can see exactly what part of the brain was affected. So far it seems that the part of her brain connected to speech has been damaged, if not obliterated."

Natsu's face flung in Lucy's direction once more. He saw the fear and nervousness in her eyes and looked hatefully at the doctor, "Can you not scare her even more than she already is?!" Dr. Donni felt the heat of his spiteful gaze and sucked in air quickly to try and hide the fear he had for the salmon-haired man. The doctor had already had enough of his wrath to last about four lifetimes.

"_Lucy!", Came Natsu's strangled cry. He skated over to her and saw her eyes roll into the back of her head. The cries and gasps of the frightened crowd were blocked out as pure fear swept through him. He had potentially lost one of the most important people of his life._

_Two people in red coats made their way to him as fast as their skates would carry them. "Mr. Dragneel, please let her go so she may go into our care. To the hospital." He nodded his head numbly and trailed his hands down her arm as they lifted her on a stretcher and brought her away. He looked to the ice and noticed tears already freezing. The announcer was going crazy, talking about what had happened, showing it again and again on replay, and saying what was going to happen. "We will update you by the hour on Miss Lucy Heartfilia's condition," The announcer said._

"_Miss" Lucy Heartfilia…_

_For some reason those words struck him the hardest. Lucy wasn't married, nor did she have a relationship with anyone, to his knowledge. He regretted that every moment of everyday, and now he let loose another strangled cry, this one more savage than the last. It echoed throughout the arena, though wasn't heard through most of the commotion._

_He had never confessed._

_He had never confessed and now he wasn't sure he'd ever get the chance. He loved her with all his heart and now… now nothing may ever happen. His partner in crime was possibly dying._

_Once again he was struck with a strong pang of regret. His best friend was probably dying and here he was sulking in self-misery and shame. He wiped his teary eyes and took two long deep breaths. Natsu pushed off from the ice and slowly made his way to the gate to follow his partner. He pulled off his skates, shoved on his cover pants and jacket, and slipped into running shoes. The coach yelled after him as he jogged past to catch up with Lucy, "Hey Natsu, wait! You can't leave yet!" Not turning back, Natsu waved off his coach and called, "I don't care I have to be with her!"_

_He met up with the medical team as they were transporting her into the ambulance. "Hey! Do you have room in there?" He called, jogging up to the staff. One looked at another, who appeared to be the head doctor. After receiving a nod, the staff relayed the affirmative to Natsu, grinned thankfully and hopped in back. He sat on one of the seats that was out of the way of anything, presumably meant just for his purpose._

_It took them fifteen minutes to get to the hospital. All of that fifteen, Natsu spent bobbing his legs up and down and holding his head in his hands. The dire situation suppressed most of his car sickness and he was able to focus enough to see what the medical team was doing. All of the fifteen, the med staff ran around the tiny space of the back, flipped switches, checking pulses, inserting needles for life meds, and yelling things in Russian at one another. They seemed calm and composed though the craziness made Natsu question their sanity._

_Natsu was told to remain in the ambulance until Lucy was transported to the hospital. He jumped out as soon as the last staff member left the vehicle, jogging after them and following the bed that held his love all the way to the emergency room where she was once more prodded, poked, and needled for ten long minutes. Another ten and a doctor, Dr. Donni, came into her room and approached Natsu. He spoke in English and had an American accent so he assumed this was the US's Olympic doctor, "Mr. Dragneel? I'm sorry, but Miss Heartfilia has gone into a coma. I thought you should know, we aren't sure if she will come out of it." The doctor let that settle in Natsu's mind._

"_We aren't sure if she will come out of it", he'd said. Natsu lifted a trembling hand and wiped away a stray tear that had slipped from his already red and puffy eyes. "Okay, just tell what's going to happen while she's like this." The doctor looked at him with a pitying gaze, "Well, she will be kept here until she awakens and since we don't when or even if she will-" Dr. Donni was suddenly stopped by two rough hands grasping his collar. He gasped and looked at the hatred filled onyx eyes. "Don't you DARE say that." Natsu spoke low and deliberately, making sure the doctor heard and remembered every single, spitefully spoken word. The man quickly nodded, eyes wide with fear and feet struggling to feel the ground that was there a minute ago._

_As his feet came into contact with the grey cement, the doctor gasped for breath and started shakily once more, "A-as I was saying, Miss Heartfilia will be kept here until she awakens," He made sure to emphasize the fact that he most truly believed she would wake, "You are free to take up residence in this city and wait with her until she does. The US Olympic Society has already contacted me saying they will pay for a small house in the city, so you are free to take them up on that offer or find a place of residence on your own." Natsu nodded, satisfied with the explaination._

_Four months._

_It had been four months since Natsu moved into the modest house the Olympic Society had granted him. It had been four months since he had seen her smile. Four months since seeing those beautiful chocolate eyes. Four months, and her delicious smell of vanilla and strawberries was fading, blending and becoming a sterile, hospital smell. He'd visited her every day, staying by her side the first week, hardly ever leaving her room if only to use the restroom._

_Now she was awake.  
_

And things weren't any better than they had been before.

He still hadn't confessed and still hadn't been away for more than twelve hours. Natsu felt horrible. First, Lucy goes into a coma, now she finds she may never speak again; and that might not be her only problem. Natsu returned loving eyes to his crush and did his best to smile reassuringly at her thin frame and hollowing cheeks. She looked incredibly sickly, but to him she was still as beautiful as ever. If only she'd smile…

Lucy saw the look of gentle love in her wonderful partner's eyes. She looked at one of the nurses and gestured with her hands for something to write with, making a piece of paper with one hand and pretending to scribble on it with the other. The nurse she'd asked, whose nameplate said Virgo, ran to a nearby table and picked up a pad of paper and pen. She gingerly set them in Lucy's lap and stood in wait at her side. Lucy shakily picked up the pen and pad and began writing with some difficulty. When she showed what she had written it read, "How long was I out?"

Natsu let loose a little whimper and looked away, leaving the doctor to answer. "F-four months." Dr. Donni said tentatively, unsure of how she would take it. A pen clattered to the floor and Virgo quickly bent to retrieve it. Lucy's eyes widened and her lower lip trembled. She took the pen from Virgo once more and wrote slowly, "Oh."

Natsu gripped her hand and stroked the top with his thumb. When Lucy looked at him he did his best to smile again, but it was painful and saddening to her. She tried to convey her emotions with her eyes and expression. A single tear escaped her eye and her blonde covered head cocked slightly to the left. Her brow furrowed and her mouth frowned, looking worriedly at the boy to her left.

"Don't look like that," she wrote, "I'm here now and we can figure this out." She did her best to give her own special smile, the one that was appropriate for the situation but could brighten anybody's day. His head perked up and a small grin stretched across his face as he nodded, determined. The doctor interjected, "We'll have to run some tests so we can figure out what all your current… boundaries are." He chose his words carefully, doing his best not to inflict the boy skater's wrath once more. Natsu nodded thankfully at the doctor and returned his sights upon his partner.

Lucy tried to shift to her side so she could try and curl up on her comfortable bed, when she found she couldn't. Her upper body moved perfectly fine, she noticed but the tingling feeling at her waist was back and worse than ever as she tried to flex her foot, move her ankle, bend her knee, make any kind of contact with the nerves in her legs at all. She grabbed the paper once more and wrote shakily and fearfully, "I can't move my legs.."

The doctor's eyes softened and he whispered, "It looks like we won't have to do many tests after all." A heavy atmosphere settled over the trio of nurses, the doctor, and the skaters as Lucy sobbed. Natsu quickly pulled her to his warm chest and petted her head, smoothing her hair and he dragged his hand down her scalp. He rocked back and forth and shushed her soothingly. He waved the doctor's away, silently asking for a private moment. They obliged and quickly left, shutting the door with a soft click behind them.

Natsu took Lucy's shoulders and edged her away from him. "Look at me," he said softly, "Luce, look at me babe." His last word caught her attention and her widened eyes snapped to his. "There we are," he chided, "It's okay. We'll get through this." His promise was so incredibly sincere, Lucy had trouble processing what he was saying, "Luce, I need you to know you are not alone. I will _always_ be there for you. I-I need you to know something though…"

"Lucy, I love you."


	3. Chapter 3

SORRY THIS ISN'T ANOTHER CHAPTER. So I need your opinion.. I've written part of the next chapter but I don't know if it's any good. So here's my question: Where do you guys want this to go? I'm only going to do a couple more chapters (they'll be long) and the chapter I have so far is incredibly tragic. So do you want it to go down that kind of path or a happier one? Either way, they will end up together.. probably. *devious grin*

So review and tell meh!

**CharlyTheNinja**  
**~(-.-)~ Nin-Nin ~(-.-)~**


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